Tuesday, February 16

Today’s build review sees Clayton taking on Takom’s 35th
scale MK.V tank that he reviewed last month. He has one of the most challenging
schemes to represent in his kit so let’s see how he got it all painted before
the final stages of the build…

When this Mk.V was announced, I had always planned on doing
the reasonably basic scheme pictured on the box. Unfortunately, all of that
changed when a friend of mine took a sneak-peek at one of the schemes included
in the kit and issued me with the challenge to paint, essentially a chess board
on the side of the tank.

Never one to step away from a challenge, I couldn’t help but
suggest I was up for it…and hence began one of the most time consuming masking
projects I have ever undertaken.

But firstly, a bit of history about the tank that sports one
of the oddest-looking paint schemes I have ever seen.

HISTORY

At the end of the First World War, a number of British MkVs’
were given to the White Russians, in the hope this may help in the fight
against the Red Army. Through a training base in the Baltic state of Estonia,
the British trained the Whites in the art of warfare and the use of the tanks.

As the Civil War escalated, the British withdrew leaving the
MkVs’ behind. Some years later, when Operation Barbarossa was launched in 1941,
the Soviets, desperate for resources, managed to find 4 Estonian MkVs’ in an
abandoned warehouse in Tallinn, Estonia. They rushed to deploy them in an
attempt to slow the German advance and allow their forces to retreat.

The scheme Clayton has picked out - notice the checked paintjob?

From the information I can piece together, of the 4 Mk.V’s
deployed, 2 were mobile and 2 were used in fixed positions.

Details and information around these tanks, as well as the
details of where the checkerboard scheme came from are sketchy at best. It has
been suggested that the MKV’s around Tallinn were all hermaphrodites, however
other sources would suggest otherwise. It has also been suggested that the
6pound guns were replaced with soviet weapons as they didn’t have the
ammunition to use the 6 pdr, but as I said, details are vague at best.

Building, Painting
and Weathering the MKV

Construction starts with the main bulk of the body. There
are some odd angles here, so it can be a good idea to use the side pieces as a
template to ensure they remain correct.
Fit was good and lines were sharp. A small amount of filler may be
required, but nothing drastic.

Steps 5 to 8 see the addition of elements to the body of the
tank. Fit is excellent and construction is very basic.

Steps 9 to 11 see the rest of the exhaust pipe fitted as
well as the cage and chain on the rear of the tank. A nice small piece of photo
etch holding the pipe to the body is included.
The chain is also included in the kit. The instructions suggest to
connect the chain to the cage using a small PE part. This became the source of
great frustration and I ended up just using the chain link and doing it my
way. The chain will be a really nice
piece of detail on the finished model, and it was important to include it and
ensure it looked taught and under some weight.
A tricky little step.

Steps 13 to 18 see the running gear and the side pieces
assembled. I have to confess; I just didn’t bother with the tiny wheels.
Previous builds of similar tanks have taught me to save the frustration because
they offer nothing to the model. The
only thing I suggest is to use the axels as they will protrude through the
holes and will be visible, so they will need to be included…but in my opinion,
forget the wheels.

There is a lot of detail in the gun assembly as you can see,
however little time is invested in cleaning this up or painting it as in
reality it will not be visible on the finished model. It is nice to know it is there if you wanted
to build an interior though. Some
serious filling and sanding will be required on the shield sections.

All of the main structure pieces are assembled and ready to
go. Due to the unique checkerboard paint scheme, I will be painting the parts
separately and assembling once they are painted.

To prepare for the paintjob, I laid the pieces for the
sponsons out flat on a piece of masking tape to hold them in place.

Let the PAINTING BEGIN

The main pieces all received a coat of Alclad II White
Primer and Micro filler. Because of the intense masking I was about to undertake,
I felt it was important to prime the model to help the paint get a good grip to
the surface.

The body of the tank was now sprayed with AMMO’s 4BO Russian
green. Different tones and highlights were achieved by mixing yellow and white
into the green paint. By using a heavily thinned paint, we can achieve some
interesting results as the paint has a certain level of translucence. This
method ensures we get some interesting effects before we even start looking at
other weathering techniques.

The Sponsons and side rails are now sprayed with AMMO, 7K
Russian Tan. Again tonal variation is achieved by mixing some British Sand in
with the base colour. These sections would soon be masked and over sprayed, so
it was important to not get too much variation in the colour because once the
other colours were set down, it may just look messy.

Although there is variation in the pattern on the side of
this tank, the basis of it is all set around this grid pattern. I draw the pattern of equal sides squares on
my computer and set about cutting them on my vinyl plotter. The excess squares were then carefully weeded
out to give the pattern.

A clear application film was then applied, which allowed the
mask to be transferred to the model. The
basic outside shape was then trimmed to the outside shape of the model part.

The application tape is then removed. Easier said than done…
Because the moulding was covered in rivets, bumps and textures, the mask really
didn’t want to cooperate. Removing the application tape, and correcting the mask,
took the best part of 2 hours per side. A very painful experience.

With the application tape removed and the mask in place, a
layer of AMMO Russian Brown was sprayed straight from the bottle. Given the
depth of the colour I didn’t want to mess with the tones on this one.

Removing the masks was just about as time consuming as
laying them, but after looking at the initial result, I knew it would be worth
my while to continue with the technique.

The remaining side, sponsons and gun shields are now masked
and ready to spray. You can see now why I set the sponsons flat in preparation
to spray.

The end result with the 6K brown sprayed over the masks.
It’s all starting to come together. The challenge was ensuring the pattern
aligns from the sponsons to the sides.

The paint scheme was littered with irregular 4BO green
squares. I initially tried to hand paint them but wasn’t happy with the
sharpness of the lines. I decided to go back to the masking bench and get some
straight lines on the green. Here you see the masks and then the result. Just the brown to go now…

Small brown sections
were masked out and sprayed

It was now time to assemble the sponsons and see if all of
my check pattern lined up. I firstly
drilled the barrel out of the machine guns and assembled the structure. This was a little fiddly I have to say. I
think given the parts were pre-painted wasn’t helping as I was having to be
very careful handling the pieces. The second one was far easier than the first.
There is a technique to it.

The sponsons were then fitted to the main body of the tank.
Not perfect, but not looking too bad! This could actually come together!

See more of the final stages of the making and painting of this kit in Part III of this story.